so, i just had this game where i tried a hermit/feodum strategy, and halfway through i realised that i had no idea how to play it correctly. i have found this thread:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=6225.msg165819#msg165819 but that's not really what I'm looking for... I neither think what the
TE OP says is correct, nor does it answer all questions.
the obvious idea is that hermit can gain silvers, while also trash your estates, junk from attacks and your feodums for the silver gain. but there are several strategical questions like:
-> when do you gain hermit, when do you gain silver?
-> when and how to end the game?
-> do you get a madman if you don't get to $3 this turn? do you get one even if you don't?
-> how many feodums do you want to trash? you have pretty much total control about this, because you can trash from the discard pile.
my thoughts so far:trashing: trashing one feodum gains you three silvers, which (ignoring their impact on money density, since you just need $3 per turn anyway) just means that all feodums have +1 VP, but you have one less feodum. so it's worth it if you have more feodums than each feodum is worth, because
n*n > (n+x)*(n-x) if x<n
in other words:
{{number of feodums}} > {{number of silvers}}/3where both numbers are what you'll have in your deck at the end of the game, not what you have at the moment.
so, it's difficult to make general statements here, because it depends on lots of things. but it's easy to figure out: count silvers, count feodums, use formula. you can trash from your discard pile, so you can correct it pretty easily. not the hard part.
what to gain: so, the way i see it, you want to buy one $3/4 card every turn, and play one hermit every turn. both goals should be equally important, since both of you give you +1 card, but having $3 (and sometimes $4) should be a lot easier to accomplish, so you probably want to get lots of hermits, since you have a good chance to have 3$ even with 2 of them on your hand. so... maybe one hermit per 4 cards in your deck? or 1/3,5? not sure, are there any simulations for this?
madmen: my first thought was that, if you make a madman, you trade one/two (depending on whether you have $3 this turn) silvers (assuming hermit and silver are worth the same) for one madman, which means you need to buy something worth two/three silvers in your madman turn (assuming just one buy). but that's incorrect, because you can play 2 hermits in your madman turn. so, if we simplify with
card you want to gain = silverthen
... make madman (lose buy, lose hermit => lose 2 silvers)
... play madman (don't buy silver this turn => lose 1 silver, but play an additional hermit this turn => gain 1 silver)this means the card you buy in your madman turn just needs to be worth >2 silvers. with 8 cards you need a money density of >=1 average to buy a province. that doesn't seem hard, in a deck full of silvers.
even if you have 8 feodums:
2 silvers = 2/3*8VP = 16/3VP = 5+1/3VP < 6 VP = one provincethis is surprising, because it suggests that you should go for madmen all the time. if you make a madman, you don't buy a feodum. if you use a madman, you don't buy a feodum. wasn't this a feodum strategy? I'm confused. It raises the question whether you should go for feodums at all, or just buy two, trash them, and then go for provinces with madmen, and only buy feodum if it's either so late in the game that another madman wouldn't do anything, or if you don't have a hermit on your hand. is it even superior to big money then? Is hermit/feodum just bad if it's worse than madmen/province?
overall, this isn't satisfying, i still wouldn't know exactly how to play. so, does anyone know more about this combination?
